Fireside Chat: What's your past CCG experience?

The original Magic: The Gathering trading card game came out while I was in high school and, while I never bought any cards to build my own collection, I do have fond memories from playing the game. I was lucky enough to go to a high school that had a diverse and inclusive environment, which made it easy for me to be a “clique jumper.” Once or twice a week, I’d spend my lunch hour in the computer lab with the other ’90s computer geeks and, inevitably, we’d end up playing a game of Magic rather than working on flow charting our code. As mentioned, I didn’t own any of my own cards, so I’d pick from the extras that everybody else had and put together an orphan deck – sort of like an arena draft in Hearthstone – and get my ass handed to me. Those days of the week were my favorite. I always knew that I was going to enjoy myself and have some good laughs with good friends. After high school, I never had another opportunity to play a CCG until Hearthstone came along. All I can say is thank goodness I didn’t start buying cards back then or I never would have had enough money to buy my first car!

So, how about you guys? What was your first introduction to Collectable Card Games and what fond memories do you have?